Cadbury's Quest

Prolouge

Prologue

         According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, time travel is possible however only forward in time not backwards. I may not be a genius, but I believe that I could provide testimonial evidence that Einstein was wrong. When I say “I” that would simply be me, Lawrence Cadbury. Yeah, that’s right Cadbury like the chocolate. My friends call me Larry. I have no exceptional scientific experience in the field of Quantum physics or time travel. I’m a common hydraulic seals warehouse salesman guy. This means that maintenance men everywhere come to me for parts when they are repairing their hydraulic machinery, like forklifts, bulldozers and cranes etc. It’s not a career, it’s a job. I’ve got 10 years experience in the field now. I’ve grown accustom to it and expect I’ll be in the business until I retire now. The money is better than any entry level job I could get and I’m too old to be chasing dreams. I’ve been through the starving artist routine already. That’s how I ended up in the hydraulic seals racket in the first place since it provided free weekends which I’ve taken advantage of in my quest to become a working musician. Of course, like most people’s dreams, mine became my hobby, as I spend most of my time toiling for my condo’s mortgage payment.
         I’m not sure if I’d be considered attractive or not. I guess it’s all a matter of taste anyway. I’m still single at 32 so it’s quite possible that I’m a goat, but I haven’t given up hope yet. Michelle, one of my best friends from as far back as I can remember, says that I’m good looking and that I’ll make some girl lucky someday, but she might be blinded by friendship. For descriptions sake, I will say that I’m tall and skinny with unruly sandy brown hair. I am clean shaven most of the time and without my glasses I’m as blind as a bat. I tried wearing contact lens years ago but they irritated me so much that I just couldn’t get used to how they felt. It was horror trying to get them in, so I quit and it’s been glasses for me ever since. Darren, Michelle’s husband, says that I push my glasses up too often like Clark Kent, but I’m pretty sure that’s not why I haven’t been “bagging chicks” as some of the fella’s at work would call it.
         It’s because of Darren and Michelle that all of this happened in a way. Indirectly of course, because it was their son Jacob and his middle school science project entitled “The Einstein Time Inversion Relativity Modifier”, which led to my experience in time travel. I am Jacob’s godfather. Darren asked me to be so. Darren and I have been friends ever since he and Michelle started seeing each other. He might have thought it was weird that Michelle’s best friend was a guy. She had lost boyfriends before over a jealousy of our friendship, but Darren stuck because he chose to befriend me instead.
         Well, as I was saying, it was their son Jacob’s science project that got me mixed up in the time traveling bit. He was always a bright kid. Straight A’s and honor roll was old hat for him. I had taken a vacation day from work that Thursday afternoon to attend the science fair. I was going to meet Michelle at Jacob’s display at 2:30. I arrived a little early and wandered around the exhibits for a while taking it all in. It wasn’t your average middle school science fair. It was a regional fair and from what Michelle had told me it was very prestigious for Jacob’s project to even be selected for the competition. When I arrived at Jacob’s display, I could tell that Michelle hadn’t arrived yet. Jacob waved to me in recognition, but he was in the middle of a demonstration so I didn’t interrupt and moved in to see what was going on. Apparently done with his technical introduction, I watched Jacob take a stopwatch and place it in a highly visible target area. He showed the stopwatch to the crowd and set it. The seconds started rolling past. Jacob then briefly explained how his time inversion relativity modifier would generate a crossbeam and create a bubble of time around the stopwatch and propel it forward in time at a rate faster than everyone else experienced. The stopwatch by this time after Jacob’s discourse had accumulated several minutes and counting. He switched on his device and adjusted the crossbeam to encompass the stopwatch. The small crowd, myself included, watched as a glowing transparent blue bubble formed around the stopwatch and it astonishingly disappeared for 5 seconds before reappearing set at 0. Amazed, I leaned in to get a better look at the stopwatch.
         The crowd began debating amongst themselves about how the stopwatch disappeared without any apparent contact aside from the modifiers crossbeam. I was concentrating so hard on the stopwatch that I was startled when Michelle tapped my shoulder. At that time there was a loud popping noise as an exhibit several stalls down of a volcano simulation erupted. It startled everybody and someone in the crowd tripped pushing a book to fall over on the table that I was leaning over. I reached out to grab the book before it fell off the end of the table top. To avoid the tripping person, Michelle stepped closer, bumping into me causing me to fall over the table while reaching for the book. In that same instant, Jacob seeing his mother lifted up his hand to wave and accidentally hit the controls of the time inversion relativity modifier beam causing the crossbeam to jump from the stopwatch and fixate upon me!
         I was totally stupefied as the transparent blue bubble grew to encompass my entire body. I was now completely inside the bubble. Looking out, I could see Michelle’s terrified expression and Jacob scrambling for the controls of the modifier. What was happening? Everything began fading out of sight. There was a blinding flash and I could feel my body spinning. When my eyes adjusted, everything was gone.